My Top Ten Oh Yeah Songs

Ed Rooney, ladies and gentlemen. Oh yeah. Here's his song, plus 9 more that say OH YEAH...



10. The Crystals - Oh Yeah, Maybe Baby

B-side to the first ever Crystals single, There's No Other (Like My Baby), from 1961. Pretty standard Wall of Sound production... Spector may have been a nutter, but he knew how to make a great record.

9. Bat For Lashes - Oh Yeah

From the third B4L album, the one where Natasha Khan appears naked on the cover apart from a strategically placed (also naked) man. You're going to have to google that, aren't you? Lately, she's been doing Sexwitch stuff with Toy (not a euphemism). About time for a proper comeback, I think.

8. Brad Paisley - Oh Yeah, You're Gone

A pretty standard bluesy-country ballad, enlivened by the mundane detail of the lyrics contrasted with the constant reminder of the title. Brad does this kind of thing so well.

7. The Subways - Oh Yeah

Sounding like Welwyn Garden City's answer to The Strokes on this one; The Subways' secret weapon was the male-female vocal combo of Billy Lunn and Charlotte Cooper. It works well here.

6. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah)

Now that's what I call a rhetorical question. You really didn't need to give us the answer in brackets, Joan.

5. Dweeb - Oh Yeah, Baby

Forgotten cartoony-Britpop band who deserved to be bigger than they were. They don't even have an iffypedia page... the only reference I can find for them is on the page for [dweeb], another indie guitar band who came along a few years later and had a similar level of success. Obviously not a name that was destined for greatness.

4. Roxy Music - Oh Yeah

I'm not sure I ever really got Roxy Music, but this is one of many decent singles from them. It's a little bit too wine bar to be rock 'n' roll, but it still sounds nice when you hear this band playing on the radio, with its rhythm of rhyming guitars... (whatever that means).

3. The Magnetic Fields - Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

How many truly great triple albums can you name? I can only think of one, and it's The Magnetic Fields' finest hour (well, 2.8 hours): 69 Love Songs. Here, Claudia Gonson tries to mend bridges with her estranged "husband", played by Fields mastermind Stephin Merritt, but he's having none of it...

When we met I thought
Money was everything
So I let you buy the house,
The car, the ring
But I can't take your perpetual whining
And you can't sing!

And then things turn really dark...

2. Ash - Oh Yeah

A summertime teenage romance writ large with anthemic guitars and Tim Wheeler's angel faced vocals. Can't help but remind me of being a teenager... even though I was 24 when it came out.

1. Yello - Oh Yeah

If Sparks had come from Switzerland (rather than LA), they might have been Yello. Dieter Meier and Boris Blank were conceptual artists first, popstars second. (Arguably, Meier didn't need pop success, he was a millionaire industrialist before Yello were even formed, not to mention being a professional poker player AND a member of the Swiss national golf team.)

Oh Yeah oozes 80s from every pore. The stop motion video is like Morph meets Peter Gabriel meets Tales of the Unexpected. Although the song wasn't a big chart hit, it did soundtrack three big 80s movies - yuppie-com The Secret of My Success with Michael J. Fox, cop buddy movie K9 with James Belushi and a German Shepherd, and most memorably of all, possibly the greatest 80s movie of all (after Back To The Future): Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Gummy bear?





Which one makes you go...?